Regular readers will be aware that on 13th January, Jimmy Wales, the founder of Wikipedia, will be giving at talk in at the Victoria Rooms in Bristol (news passim). In the meantime news has been received from Ask Bristol that there will be a live webcast of the event. As Ask Bristol stated recently on […]
Just before Christmas, PCWorld.com ran an article speculating on the differences if the world ran its IT on secure Linux-based systems rather than insecure closed source proprietary operating systems. One reason for such speculation is that, for as long as we advocates can remember, it’s always been the next year that’s going to be the […]
Yesterday, Rich, Jules and yours truly were representing Bristol Wireless at a Connecting Bristol event (news passim) at the Watershed entitled ‘The Digital Challenge is Over – The Digital Opportunity is Here’. It was good to see some old (not in the geriatric sense. Ed.), familiar faces: Kevin and Stephen from Connecting Bristol, Stephen Dodson […]
OSOR informs us that open source moves are afoot in Portugal. Two of Portugal’s left-wing political parties want to make the use of open standards mandatory for the country’s public sector. On Friday, 10th December the Portuguese parliament will discuss two motions, filed by the Left Bloc, with sixteen of the 230 seats in the […]
A couple of days ago, we received a donation of a rather smart machine; this will be refurbished and offered for sale as part of our refurbishment project, for which we currently have a selection of machines complete with a full set of software (internet, office, entertainment and multimedia applications) available starting from £30. The […]
Public administrations in Norway are increasingly turning to open source, says Martin Bekkelund, business developer at Friprog, the country’s open source competence centre. This year, all 19 county administrations are using some form of open source, compared to 76 per cent in 2005. Uses vary from server operating systems and content management systems to OpenOffice. […]
An email’s arrived from Steve Virgin of Wikimedia UK to say that Jimmy Wales, the man behind Wikipedia, is coming to Bristol on 13th January 2011. He’ll be appearing at the Victoria Rooms (map) on that day between 12.00 and 13.00. This is a special event to mark 10 years of Wikipedia, featuring the man […]
The Ubuntu UK community and Canonical, the commercial sponsors of Ubuntu, are currently inviting folk to a very different type of IT event being held on Tuesday, 13th July in London between 1 pm and 5 pm. The venue is The Brickhouse, 152c Brick Lane, London, E1 6RU (map). The nearest Tube station to the […]
A few years ago I stumbled across a cracking little application which helped me no end as an introduction to Linux. Wubi is an Ubuntu Linux installer designed for Windows. The great thing about this application is that the benefits of the open source world are literally just a simple mouse click away. The installation […]
It’s 3pm on Friday afternoon (aka POETS Day. Ed 🙂 ) and the lab is in the capable hands of Jim, Stefan & your ‘umble scribe. Jim & Stefan, both freshly supplied with a hot drink are busy working away on machines for our refurbishment project, whilst yours truly is catching up on paperwork, but […]
This morning news arrived via your scribe’s Twitter feed that Mozilla’s Firefox, the leading open source web browser, has now overtaken Internet Explorer as the top browser and now accounts for over 44% of installed web browsers, according to the latest user analysis from w3b.org. Those who feel competent in German may like to try […]
Regular readers will be aware that Bristol Wireless wrote during September to the Prime Minister and Chancellor of the Exchequer (news passim) and sent them each an Ubuntu live CD (so they could do half of Whitehall each? Ed. 😀 ). We’ve now had a reply (sort of. Ed.) from Tim Bett, Director, Commercial Delivery, […]
French newspaper Le Figaro reports that the Government of Latvia, which has been severely affected by the economic crisis, intends replacing Microsoft’s proprietary software with free and open source software. “This is being done with the sole aim of saving money”, a spokesman explained. The decision, which was recently signed by the Prime Minister, is […]
Freeskilling don’t – and don’t think you do either (quite rightly. Ed. 🙂 ). Tomorrow night – Tuesday, 13th October – they’re organising an event at the Better Food Co. Cafe in St Werburghs (map), starting at 7.00 pm to tell you why you don’t need Redmond’s offering. To quote from the publicity: Ben Smith […]
OSOR.eu, the Open Source Observatory and Repository, reports that Inria, France’s national computer science institute, says free software is essential to develop digital society. The institute is launching a research centre to focus on this type of software, Cirill (IT Innovation and Research Centre for Free Software). Cirill’s founding was announced at the Open World […]
Yesterday John Headstrong, an old friend and supporter of Bristol Wireless, posted the following on his Twitter feed: My 6 year old son is currently installing Ubuntu. What is your excuse for not installing it ? #ubuntu Ubuntu Linux: so simple a 6 year-old can install it. Excuses below in the comments please. 😀
It cannot have escaped the notice of anyone in the United Kingdom that, after having slipped our profligate banks billions of pounds to prop them up, the public coffers are rather empty and that consequently central government is looking around for ‘efficiency savings’ and even the Prime Minister has been forced to say the ‘c’ […]
Bristol Wireless volunteer phasma has posted the following article on Bristol Indymedia for a forthcoming event on 30 September at the Freeshop, 35 Stokes Croft, Bristol (map): Open workshop coming up in preparation for an ongoing project involving the community, open source, the Linux terminal server project and general networking. With a view to our […]
Some months ago Bristol Wireless were asked by Easton Community Centre to provide some new LTSP thin clients in secure cabinets, similar to those already installed in St Werburgh’s Community Centre (news passim), whilst regular readers may recall our first post on the Mk. II cabinets. The first of the cabinets was delivered to Easton […]
Regular readers will be aware of the existence of Tux, the Linux kernel mascot (news passim) and now if you live in the United States, you’ll be able to show your commitment to free and open source software by carrying a Tux-branded Visa credit card, courtesy of the Linux Foundation, the non-profit organisation dedicated to […]